In culturing of plant tissue, in general, a tissue or an organ of a plant, a part of the same or cultured cells are cultivated by the use of a medium containing a plant hormone (such as auxin, cytokinin, gibberellin, ethylene and the like) in addition to nutrients essential to the growth of plants (such as inorganic salts, vitamins, sugars and the like) to form calluses, which are then cultured for several generations, thereby producing a useful substance or regenerating the original plant body therefrom.
Methods of regenerating a plant body by plant tissue culture technology may be classified into two types, i.e., differentiation and dedifferentiation, according to the kind of starting material used. The method of dedifferentiation regenerates a plant body through the dedifferentiated state of calluses or liquid-cultured cells. Typical examples include the method of developing many shoots from cluster calluses and developing roots from each shoot, thus regenerating a juvenile plant body, and the method of directly forming adventive embryos (somatic embryos) in cells, thus regenerating a juvenile plant body. When a plant body is regenerated through adventive embryos, it is known that the embryos grow to globular, heart-shaped, torpedo-shaped and mature embryos, in that order. On the other hand, the methods of differentiation employ, as the starting material, shoot apexes, dormant buds, lateral buds, embryos and seeds containing growing points, as well as hypocotyls, cotyledons and stems which contain no growing point. A typical example is the method comprising developing multiple shoots from the above-mentioned plant tissues, cutting off these multiple shoots, developing multiple shoots from each single shoot thus obtained, and finally developing roots from each of the cut shoots, thus regenerating a juvenile plant body.
In plant body regeneration by dedifferentiation cell cultivation for several generations over a long period tends to lower the ability of differentiation, resulting in a decreased rate of forming adventive embryos from cultured cells and of forming shoots and roots from calluses. When adventive embryos are artificially derived, it is common practice to investigate the type, concentration and combination of plant hormones (such as auxin and cytokinin) to be added to the culture medium, to say nothing of inorganic salt composition. However, there are many kinds of plants in which formation of adventive embryos and formation of shoots and roots from calluses cannot be expected from mere treatment with auxin or cytokinin. Adventive embryos, in particular, tend to stop growing at the stage of torpedo shape, significantly reducing rate of redifferentiation to the plant body. Also in the plant body regeneration by differentiation, studies have been made on the type, concentration and combination of plant hormones (such as auxin and cytokinin), inorganic salts and trace organic components to be added to the culture medium, but cases are known in which no formation of shoots and roots is observed, depending on the kind of plant and tissue. In both differentiation and dedifferentiation, the use of plant hormones inhibits the growth and differentiation in some cases, depending on the kind and added amount of the hormone. Hence, there has been a demand for an improved method which will enhance the rate of forming adventive embryos from various plant tissues, organs or cultured cells and which will effectively accelerate the growth of adventive embryos and the regeneration of a plant body.
Natural organic compounds produced by plants, such as alkaloids, terpenoids and various pigments, have long been used extensively as medicines and foods. For obtaining these useful substances, extraction from naturally grown or cultivated plants has long been adopted, but this is not an effective method to obtain a large quantity of the useful substances, because the mass and nature of plants are greatly influenced by natural conditions and much labor and time are needed for harvesting of plants. In recent years, planned and stable production of these useful substances is carried out by mass-cultivation of plant cells based on the plant tissue culture technology. In practicing this new method, it is desired to rapidly grow cultured cells containing a useful substance. Actually, however, cases are known in which no useful substance is produced at all or the amount of products is very small, depending on the composition of the culture medium used. Hence, an improved method is demanded in such cases which will accelerate the production of useful substances.
Furthermore, attention has been attracted to the development of synthetic seeds as a method of cultivating cloned plants in large quantities by the plant tissue culture technology, and practical applications are attempted with various kinds of plants, such as vegetables and rice plants. Synthetic seeds comprise plant regenerating tissues such as adventive buds or embryos embedded and enclosed in a synthetic albumen and a synthetic membrane. The synthetic albumen involves substances that supply the plant regenerating tissue with nutrition and control germination. Calcium alginate is now regarded as the best material for the synthetic membrane, but the use of many other polymeric gelatinizing agents is also being studied. In order to enhance the rate of germination in such a synthetic seed, addition of abscisic acid (a plant hormone) to the synthetic albumem was also reported, but increase in germination rate is not always observed because dissolution and diffusion of this acid in water take a long time. A technique of adding a high-concentration sugar or the like to the synthetic albumen was also proposed, but this promotes the proliferation of unwanted bacteria and inhibits the growth of plants in some cases. Hence, practical applications of synthetic seeds would be further promoted if the growth of plant regenerating tissues such as adventive embryos in the synthetic seeds can be accelerated to enhance the germination rate.